Message-ID: <20012eli$9902170449@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Archived-At: From: "Joanna De Brito" Subject: {Joanna} The Code Of Tawr (7/10 MF caution) Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Path: qz!not-for-mail Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Approved: X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded X-Story-Submission: X-Original-Message-ID: <19990217012011.21455.qmail@hotmail.com> Standard Disclaimer: Over 18s Only. This is part seven of a serialized story. If you haven't yet read the earlier parts, I strongly suggest you go back and start there. As this is a serial I don't want to give too much away in the story codes. What I am prepared to say is that the story will be (almost) entirely MF, and that there are n/c, rape, and what are to me, macabre themes developed. Do not read if such things squick you. However, no pedo; no incest. On the other hand, if this kind of stuff turns you on: enjoy! Joanna The Code Of Tawr by Joanna (joanna_de_brito@hotmail.com) Copyright 1999 All rights reserved February 1999 Perhaps you may yet find me: I am so close; just the other side of the Portal... Part Seven Write her out, he had said, that had been quite specific. With pleasure! This was something I would enjoy. But how should it be done? I could, of course, just move on and let Rebecca quietly fade from memory, but that would not please me. I wanted my pound of flesh, to pen my revenge, to dig my dagger deep. Within me there was a bloodlust of which I was not particularly proud. She should suffer, as she had made me suffer. Now was the time to exorcise her from my psyche. **************************************************** The Code Of Tawr Chapter Three In The Tower A lady in a drab black gown glides effortlessly up the long spiral stairs. It is dark despite her candle, shadows flicker long and ghostly. There is a pace, a confidence about her step that says that this is a place she knows well: that she is not bothered by the gloom into which she climbs. It is a pace that also suggests youth, for how else can she sustain it? Reaching the top there is a corridor, dark and unlit; but she strides even along this remote avenue with familiarity of step. She is not lost; there is purpose in her bearing. Neither is she alone; a man follows in her wake. He is not so certain: his step is unsure and is guided by her lead. This man we know; his garb is dark and somber and seems to flow around him as he walks. This is the Inquistador, and he is making a visit. There is a wooden door at the far end of the corridor. The lady arrives with the Inquistador following, half hidden in the shadow of the candle she holds. His silent guide unlocks the door and pulls it ajar. Only her eyes can be seen through the black veil that covers her head. They are pretty eyes, he notices them, but they are fixed elsewhere. Downcast, they venture neither approval nor disapproval, no opinion at all as to the contents of the room or its visitor. This lady has been well taught, but she knows what she guards, and her heart beats heavy. Her head remains bowed as she silently listens. "Thank you," he says. "Please wait outside, Sharon. I will knock when I need you." He steps past her into the opened room. As he enters, she is pleased to be able to shut the door and sit on the chair that waits in the gloom. She knows not how long she must wait, but her patience is determined to be infinite should that be required: only his knock will disturb her vigil. * Inside the prison cell the Inquistador paused, as behind him the door slammed shut. The room was long and narrow with a high ceiling that sloped at the far end and into which a small bare window had been cut. Joanna stood against the wall, part way between the door and the window. She had been bound; her wrists were cuffed behind her and the cuffs then attached to a fixing in the wall; her ankles were also manacled to another fixing. She slouched, because she had been left fastened like this for some time and she was tired. Her face was smudged with dirt and her hair was uncombed. The Inquistador stepped forward and surreptitiously admired the beauty before him, a beauty enhanced by distress. She was dressed in the garb of a convicted felon: a navy serge robe that buttoned down the front. The fit was bad: it hung like a tent from her shoulders to her knees. It was also worn and stained with what looked like blood. Her feet were bare and she was also gagged. Silent behind that gag, the frightened eyes that watched him as he approached told him that he had her attention. "Good evening," he said, with a preoccupied expression. Now that he was here, he seemed unsure as to what else he should say. Whether he really wanted what he had come here to seek. Angst consumed him. She, also, had angst of her own. But her eyes remained fixed and told him that she was still listening. But he said nothing. It was difficult to know which of them was the more tortured. He glanced momentarily from her bondage to the window beyond and stepped across to glance outside. The main courtyard was below; and it was a hive of activity. To his left was the market where there were people buying and selling and haggling for the best price. Some had strayed and were watching the more ominous preparations at the other end of the courtyard in front of the Portal, those huge decorated gates at the base of the white chalk cliff that were the entranceway to the unknown. Here work was proceeding to prepare for Joanna's execution. Immediately in front of the Portal a number of men were driving a metal stake deep into the ground. Other soldiers were stacking wood against a wall while a third group was marking a huge semi circle where these wooden faggots were to be laid. The Inquistador paused, fully a minute, watching the morbid attractions below. "They're very busy down there," he observed finally, "just like ants. And all in your honor. I know you can't see, but I guess you can hear the activity." He spoke slowly, reflectively, the grim preparations stirring painful memories. "I always knew you would be different," he murmured. "Even when you were just a gawky adolescent. I would see you with your father; there was an aura about you that the others didn't have. That's why I arranged to have you moved here from Dayton Priory." He stopped: the activity he was observing through the window prompting his mind to recall old painful memories. "I only remember this being done once before," he said. "It was not La cepern then, she was from one of the junior orders, I don't recall exactly which now, it was a long time ago. I was a priest down by the coast at the time. So I didn't get to see 'the event', as it was called. Though as you might imagine, the gossip mongers spread every morbid detail afterwards." He paused, his mood melancholy. "I knew her. She was a very pretty girl, full of life; she liked to have a good time, not unlike you. They said she had sinned and that her lover had denounced her. He had a conscience and although he still loved her, he could not bear to live alienated from the love of Tawr. He had faced the dilemma of having to choose between destroying the woman he had come to love, or upsetting the God he had been trained to serve. "They say that she denied it to the end. According to her she was convicted on the word of a vindictive admirer who had leveled a false accusation in a moment of spite. Of course, she said, once the charge had been laid it was impossible for him to rescind it because then he would receive the punishment intended for her. After all, that is the code." He looked questioningly at Joanna. "What do you think? Which story do you believe? I heard she suffered unimaginable pain before she succumbed to the flames and that when they had subsided her precious beauty had been reduced to an ash indistinguishable from that of the firewood." He blinked back a tear, returning suddenly to his previous thread. "As you grew older you reminded me of her. I really thought that you held an admiration for me. I managed to help you in lots of small, silly ways, without you ever knowing about them. I made sure no obstacle hindered your progress through the order. "I'm not sure what I expected, really. I enjoyed making you the one thing I denied myself. I yearned for your body but took greater pleasure in self-denial. The expectation was so intense that I knew that it would be an anticlimax to fulfill it: that to possess my jewel would be to destroy it. "And then Mister Bradley came on the scene, dashing; good looking; athletic; a mysterious stranger. What more could a woman ask? I saw the way the heads turned when he passed. He had the pick of any unattached young lady, I wanted but one. Then I saw the way that your head turned too - don't try to deny it - many things I may be, but I am not blind. "Then, so quickly, the tables were turned and it was you that had his attention. That was too much, to lose my most precious possession to, to, him. And why, why did he take my little lamb when he had such choice? "But never did I think he would take my treasure and then crush it in his claws. Never did I believe... You thrilled to feel this man inside you? You told me that. You were electrified by his touch? How could you be so cruel?" He stared piercingly at her, and, not seeing whatever it was he was searching, he was visibly fallen and disappointed. "What I admired and esteemed died somewhere out there on the mountain." She was trying to talk. There was so much he had said that just made no sense at all. He was expressing impossible feelings; how could the Inquistador have harbored such craving? He was no fallible creature like herself: he was the Chief Representative of Tawr. He was supposed to be above such human frailty, to have learned how to control tawdry emotion. Noticing that she was trying to speak, he reached to pull the gag out of her mouth. "A La cepern, who ceases to be a La cepern up here," he said as he did so, tapping the end of his forefinger against his forehead. "Is already dead. That is what happened to Sarah. That is also what I had to tell Rebecca." She was confused. As he pulled the gag from her mouth, she asked, "Sarah? You mean the lady that was burned? And what have you, what have you done with Rebecca?" He sighed. "Rebecca has also spent some time in the tower." She was shocked. "What for? What has Rebecca done?" "You saw what Rebecca did. Have you ever seen anything so shameful?" "You mean the striptease? I was surprised that she obeyed you, but that's the point. She did it to please you. You asked her to be exciting! She only did what you asked of her, what you told us beforehand she would do!" He sighed, sadly. "She stopped being a La cepern in her head. I asked her to be a stripper: so that's what she must be. If I had asked her to whore: then that she must do, she must beguile or seduce and play her part. But she must never confuse the part with the substance; become what she feigns to be. That was Sarah's sin. It is also Rebecca's sin. They did it for real: Rebecca became a seductive stripper, but it wasn't an act." "So is it fair that you condemn her for that? She did her very best to obey what you had asked of her." "It was her trial. She failed the ordeal." This was insanity. Where would it end? "Please, show mercy. What are you planning to do with her?" There was a noticeable change in his mood as he considered her question. The melancholy disappeared, replaced with a threatening menace. He smiled cruelly. "Planning? Nothing. It is already done." She was filled with dread, fearing the worst, but not quite knowing what that entailed. "What have you done? What have you done to Rebecca?" His smile twisted and grew. "You do show a morbid interest," he suggested. "No. It's natural that I should be concerned about a fellow sister. It would seem she has no one else to look out for her." "A natural interest, eh? All right, then I shall satisfy your natural interest. I will tell you what I did with Miss Rebecca." Joanna knew she should stop him. He mood was schizoid and impossible to predict. But she was anxious to learn what had befallen Rebecca, somehow within her mind her own fate and that of Rebecca had become inseparably intertwined, and so she encouraged him to continue. "Miss Rebecca was brought to a room such as this," he began. He looked round the cell, weighing the comparison. "Very similar to this. Her wrists were bound with rope and then that rope pulled over a pulley that we keep conveniently located on the ceiling. Just like that one there." He pointed to an iron pulley of about three inches diameter that was bolted into a ceiling joist. Joanna looked up, blinking back a tear. "She was hauled up until her toes were just able to touch the ground. Can you imagine the pain that soon begins to rack her shoulders and her upper arms as they take her whole weight? "And then we undressed her. She stared back at me with an expression of pitiful pleading as we cut her dress and slip with an open knife; she was wondering what we planned. The questions were so clearly written in her frightened eyes: would we use the knife to cut her? Were we going to rape her? Seeing that expression, it was delicious." He smiled. "I fostered that anxiety: running the blade of the knife across her bare skin, loving the fear it produced, it was a drug to me. Shall I tell you what I had in mind for her? I think you would like to know." Joanna knew she did not want to know. But neither did she trust herself to stop him, so she just listened, tacitly allowing him to carry on. "I was removing her clothes so that I could beat her with a leather whip. Isn't that the punishment prescribed in the code? Doesn't it say that should a La cepern allow her nakedness to be seen, then she should be flogged? Tell me, Joanna, is that not the law?" "Yes," she reluctantly agreed. "She was in no doubt about what we planned for her because I held the whip where she could see. So that she could anticipate its kiss upon her delicate flesh. I told her as I sliced her bra from her breasts that during her beating it would be her responsibility to get her more sensitive parts out of reach. I would strike from the same position throughout and whatever part was toward me would receive the full weight of the lash. My secret wish was to be able to lay a few strokes," the Inquistador said harshly. "Just here", and he indecently placed the palm of his hand over Joanna's dress where it covered her pubis. She gasped in startled consternation at the effrontery but she could not verbalize protest, such was her training and the dominating effect of the Inquistador's office and manner. He left his hand upon her genitalia, watching closely the discomfiture it aroused with enjoyment. He continued. "As I cut her knickers off her I told her what I was hoping. I do pray, I said, I'll get the chance to strike you here." His hand pressed imperceptibly upon Joanna as he emphasized the final word, and then, having made his point, he removed his hand from its indelicate position. "It was a pleasure depriving her of her panties, she is very pretty is she not?" The question was rhetorical, but Joanna interjected, "I don't believe you could have done it. These are not the actions of a holy man, they are the actions of a brute." "But I am not a brute, am I? I am the voice of Tawr. So what does that mean, Joanna? What must you do? You must show faith, trust whatever I say. And so much more faith is required since I appear to you so brutish. You must trust me. Is this not so?" "Yes," she choked finally in reply. For this was certainly the case. How could she compel Tawr? If the mighty Man God chose not to reveal to her his reasons for acting in a particular way, who was she to say he was wrong? She had a duty to maintain her loyalty. "Of course as I prepared to lay the first stroke upon her she was careful to stand with her back toward me. I had after all invited her to watch out. But there is one more piece of information, Joanna, that I must give you," his words were tripping over themselves in his eagerness to communicate his cunning ploy. "You see Rebecca could only just touch the floor with the tips of her toes. She had to really strain to reach the ground. So when I struck her the first time with the whip squarely upon her buttocks she lost balance and spun round dangling on the rope. Of course, her momentum turned her to face me and you must imagine her cry of desperation as I became the object of her vision, as she saw me with arm raised and about to strike. "She tried to swing round and protect her precious assets. She almost succeeded as well. My next stroke hit her across the top of her thigh. You can't conceive how delightful her cries as it bit. She tried to lift her leg to protect herself from the next stroke, but how foolish, for she had nowhere to hide, and again she lost balance and this time I didn't miss. "That next stroke fell full across the flesh of her unprotected breasts. What can I say? Her scream was heaven. She tried again to turn and escape, but she could not evade. "Joanna, she danced such a very different dance to the one she danced in the Committee Room. She was beaten soundly with that whip. How many stokes, I cannot say. I didn't care to count. But her legs kicked obscenely as she tried to avoid it. And by the end her skin was raw and showed the trace of every individual stroke. Her breasts," he stopped and looked at Joanna's bust through the heavy serge as if he were actually still looking at Rebecca. "Her breasts were red and inflamed and I saw that even her nipples showed where they had been struck." "How, how is she?" Joanna moaned. "Please say this was the end of her torture. Please say you did not punish her more." The Inquistador laughed freely. "Joanna, oh Joanna, that is so rich. She is alive and her pain is improving her, if that is what you are asking. She will recover, and maybe, in time she will even qualify for her gown. You see, I am not entirely without mercy." He crossed to the door and knocked. Sharon, the veiled lady that had brought him to this desolate corner of the castle opened it. There was a Machiavellian twist to his expression when he turned. "And now for you, my dear Joanna. I must tell you what I have in store for you. I don't believe I can content myself with simply letting you burn. I believe you deserve a little extra penance. Mister Bradley showed you pleasure; I will show you pain. Since you show such an interest in what became of Rebecca, maybe you would like to feel a little of what she felt." "No," Joanna gasped, struggling at the rope holding her wrists. "Oh do not fret, I do not mean to have you flogged, although," he said savagely. "Although it is certainly deserved, you are safe because it would not do to take you to the square tomorrow visibly damaged. I must therefore constrain myself to a little something that will not be seen." He spoke to the lady in the veil. "Sharon, string her up as we did Rebecca. Let her hang by the arms until Mister Bradley condescends to visit. I think she will anticipate that call most keenly. And who can say, perhaps we will awaken within him a lust for pain? What do you think, Joanna? A man who can rape, might he not also take great pleasure in making you sing to his command? I hope this gives you something to ponder as you patiently wait." Once again he was about to leave, and once again he stopped and turned back. "There is a final thing I would say," he began again, a cunning gleam springing to his eye. "One last act I wish you to perform. A final test. Perhaps if you succeed, even now Tawr will be forgiving and guide your spirit through the afterlife. When Bradley comes to see you I want you to make yourself cum while he watches. Make sure you do it properly. I shan't be here to watch. But Tawr will see and know whether it is real or you pretend. And as you do it you must ask him to describe all the things that will be done to you tomorrow. I want you to see his arousal, his excitement as he watches what you are doing, and to wonder whether it is your naked abandon or the thought of your burning body that stimulates his erection." He seemed pleased with his own ingenuity. "Remember, a La cepern remains a La cepern even when she is stripping. She remains a La cepern even if she should be made to hang naked before me, her breasts ready for my pleasure. She remains a La cepern even if I make her whore, or burn her. Even if I show my total power over her by making her masturbate and reach an orgasm to entertain a man that raped her. A La cepern must never, ever betray Tawr. I know that the daughter of Jean de Brito won't let down the order by neglecting her penance." The keeper had retied her wrists to the rope hanging from the pulley. As she took up the slack Joanna's arms began to be forced above her head. The Inquistador nodded with satisfaction and said with bitterness to the veiled lady at his side, "Leave her trussed up and naked until Mister Bradley comes. No, leave her there until he has agreed to be entertained by her masturbation. That should encourage our shy miscreant to action. As I say, I'm sure Miss Joanna will find the humiliation of waiting for her lover and him finding her in that exposed position rewarding." He left in a swift flowing movement, his cape sweeping behind. Joanna could hear the retreating footsteps, the creak of the rope upon the pulley above her head and the commotion outside her window. She grimaced as the rope pulled her arms upward, cutting into the skin of her wrists. She felt the strain on her shoulders and her ribcage tighten. Again, it jerked upwards and her heels were lifted from the ground, now she could only stand on the balls of her feet. Sharon fastened the rope and approached Joanna. She indicated her interest in Joanna's clothing. "I'm very sorry," she said, noticing the discomfort of her charge caused by that gesture, and she meant it because she wasn't at all vindictive. "But he said I must, and," she shrugged her shoulders. "You know I don't have any choice." Joanna nodded. She understood too well the need to obey rules. Sharon began unbuttoning the front of her dress. She did it tenderly: if that can be an apt description of the unbuttoning of a dress. "You must not fret," Sharon said, taking hold of a pair of scissors. "You must place your spirit in Tawr's mighty hand. He will guide you in your peril." She snipped at the shoulders of the dress, cutting from there vertically along the outside of Joanna's up- stretched limbs. She pulled it over Joanna's bust and hips and it then fell to the floor. Sharon kicked it aside. "I know he can strengthen me," Joanna confessed. "But I wonder if he will. Given that I have failed him so." Sharon snipped the straps of Joanna's bra, pulling it away from her bust. "You are very beautiful," she breathed softly as she looked at Joanna's topless body. There was no sexual overtone in what she said. It was a statement of fact, no more. "He will provide," Sharon said simply. "Through you he will teach us all never to despair; that even as the ropes of death encircle us, he will hold our hand and be our strength." "Thank you," Joanna said. "Oh I do so thank you." Sharon snipped the waistband of Joanna's knickers and gently pulled them away. "I must lift you from the floor now," Sharon said so apologetically as she again took hold of the rope. "He said I must lift you from the floor." "Then do it," Joanna grunted. "I will endure. I promise, I will." Joanna cried as despite Sharon's best efforts to be gentle, the rope jerked her from the floor. Her weight was now entirely borne by the ropes and by her wrists and by her arms. Her face twisted in agony as her body spun slowly to the gyre of her harness. Sharon looked and felt so guilty. If there was any way she could withhold administering this torment she would. But she had a duty to Tawr, and to the authority he used to communicate his agenda. That duty came before any affection she might have for Joanna or any other individual. "I must go now," she muttered, crossing to the door. "Please be strong. I will petition Tawr that he will grant you that." She bit her lip as she took a final glance back into the cell. Her gaze rested on Joanna's breasts for a moment too long. "You are so very pretty," she said. "It will be such a shame!" She returned and kissed them both tenderly. "Pardon me," she murmured. "But when I see such things how can I not be tempted?" There was a catch in her voice as she spoke. Silently she replaced the ball gag in Joanna's mouth before turning away from Joanna and leaving without a word of goodbye, concealing her face in her veil. The door slammed shut with a reverberating bang, the keys rattled and the lock turned. Joanna was alone. Her breath was shallow and strained. She was so very focused on the pain of her tormented muscles. **************************************************** "Do you like it?" I asked eagerly as Paul came to the end. "It's very good," he said. He hesitated. "But don't you think it a little cruel?" "Of course, but I thought you liked it brutal," I grinned, remembering his reaction to the first chapter. "I remember how turned on you were after reading the bit where you rape me." He considered that thoughtfully. "What I'm unhappy about," he observed. "Is that you seem to be enjoying the brutality." I was incredulous. Was he serious? "So it is fine if you enjoy scenes of cruelty, but if I enjoy them there is something wrong?" "For me the cruelty is fantasy. I would never want to harm you in real life." "And you think I do want to hurt someone?" This was even more unbelievable. "Why did Rebecca have to be tortured?" "Rebecca? Because you told me to write her out of the story. You think I would want to harm Rebecca?" "You make me wonder, yes. What you write isn't mere fantasy; it's too close to real life. The fact that Rebecca and Sharon and you and me, that we're all in it... Why is that? It's as though you write to give yourself control over things or people you do not like." "That's rubbish! I write because it helps me know you better." "That was true when we began. But now I am not so sure." He looked down at the pages resting on his lap. "You didn't write this for me, what did you write here for me? You did it for yourself. It made you feel better." He had upset me. "You told me to write Rebecca out." "You could have done that in a couple of sentences. But you had her stripped and tortured. What are you planning next? Another execution? Or a lesbian scene between you and Sharon?" "That isn't fair." "The Inquistador tells you every detail, everything he's done to Rebecca. Why does he do that? Why should he think you care? He knows your thinking; he knows you'll want to hear. Why? I've had enough. This has gone too far. I don't want to read any more. I've had enough of your story." The Code Of Tawr End Of Part Seven Part Eight ....Coming Soon! -- +----------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `--------------+ | | | | Archive site +----------------------+--------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ | ----